Nearly a dozen states have quietly signed onto a plan to effectively ditch the Electoral College and instead, award the White House to the candidate that wins the popular vote.

The National Popular Vote agreement would take effect if states that represent 270 electoral votes all commit. New York has most recently joined the efforts, bringing the number of states to 10 plus the District of Columbia. Altogether, they represent 165 electoral votes.

Without the Electoral College, FoxNews.com digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt said we would have had a whole different trajectory of presidents. If presidents are selected through the popular vote, he said that campaigns will focus on maximizing turnout in urban centers. He said the “plan is to subvert the will of the Constitution and the founders.”

“This is disempowering to rural America and empowering to urban America,” he said, explaining that it amounts to a "hack" of the Constitution by people who don't believe in the Electoral College.

Since there is not enough support in Congress to change the Constitution and officially end the Electoral College, this plan would allow popular vote advocates to work around it.

Stirewalt pointed out that this plan is part of a larger trend on the part of "frustrated" liberals who haven't been able to bring about the changes they want.

"They are simply taking them. They are simply doing it and if people dissent and if people complain and if the stodgy, old Constitution gets in the way, if the fussy old Whigs in the Electoral College complain about it, too bad. Because they're gonna hack the code and they're gonna find a way to get what they want," he said.

So can this actually happen?

Stirewalt believes there will be significant pushback once people across the United States realize the "deadly gravity of what is being proposed" and if the states move closer to 270.

He said on the surface, the idea of the popular vote winner becoming president sounds good to a lot of people. But Stirewalt concluded by saying the United States "is not a democracy. This is a republic."

Watch the interview above, and check out The Kelly File, tonight at 9p/12a ET.